Wildlife

Dirt and gravel and ruts and prayers

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

“My road is dirt and gravel and ruts and prayers, it’s terrifying in the winter and so beautiful your heart hurts in the fullness of summer.”

I wrote those words for a digital essay I did about my house.

The same road I hate in the winter, I love this time of year — particularly early mornings when the mist is still settled in the lowlands and the tall grasses sparkle in the light of rising sun. Inevitably, there will be deer with their fawns. I forget that deer are not a daily occurrence for all folks. Beautiful creatures and the little ones too make your heart hurt with their youth and beauty. There are rabbits and I can hear the peepers in the pond. If I’m lucky, the flock of wild turkey will make an appearance. They are so ugly they are beautiful – especially the Old Tom who has lived a pugilistic life to keep his harem. He struts with pride and the ladies and their young’uns follow.

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A Mouse in the House and a Bat in the Bedroom

/ wvfurandroot / 2 Comments
scared

There is evidence of a mouse in my pantry. I hope it’s just a mouse and not mice. Or worse, a squirrel. I’m pretty confident that it’s not a bat.

I loathe mice. Loathe them. More embarrassingly, I’m afraid of them. I think it’s the surprise of the scurry factor – a startle and a cringe. Since they arrive each year about this time, I’ve come a long way. A long time ago, I lived in a rental house that had a mouse. A mouse so brazen, he or she would pop its head up from the burner, saunter across the counter and dip into the dishwater for a drink – the same dishwater that I’d had my hands in nanoseconds before. I was so unnerved by this mouse that I moved into a motel until The Ex could offer proof the evil creature was dead.

I would prefer to have snakes in the house than mice. Snakes are cool and they eat mice. The brief period of time I did have a snake camping out in my home, the vermin problem was nonexistent. Worse than mice are squirrels. Those creatures are nothing but big mice with a flamboyant tail and damaging incisors.

squirrel-eating-acorn

I’ve had squirrels in the house. I found pockets of acorn stash here and there. It took quite a bit of money and perseverance to evict the squirrels. I was pert near ready for the insane asylum by the time that problem got solved. To my credit, I guess, I did not move into a motel. Like I said, I’ve come a long way.

There was the summer of the possum that wanted to sashay about my family room. I put an end to that pretty quickly. No, I merely convinced the possum to move on. No harm came to the possum.

And then there was Willy’s Toad. I wasn’t fond of the toad either – that startle factor thing again.

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Chili Today, Clean Tomorrow

/ wvfurandroot / 9 Comments

First sock of the season!

I have on socks AND a sweatshirt.

There are rain puddles, as well as leaves and acorns, on the patio.

I have closed all the windows and doors. Put the fans away.

The remains of chili and cornbread litter the kitchen counter.

I am happy.

After the horrible winter last, I vowed not to complain of summer’s heat. I made it about 6 weeks before that vow was trashed. In my defense, it was one of the hottest Junes on record. The rest of the summer didn’t relent. Oh how I have whined.

I never complain about spring or fall lest they’re too wet. I love both seasons – one for it’s advent of outdoor living; the other for domestic nesting.

Years ago I read somewhere that it’s more efficient to do heavy cleaning in the fall rather than the traditional spring cleaning. The reason centered on the fact that most of us spend a great deal of time outside in the summer and track in dirt and sand followed by pressing our sweaty bodies into the upholstery. That is certainly true of me. Couple that with window fans, a dirt road, and my general disdain for cleaning, and one might understand how flippin’ grimy my house is.

This is especially disheartening given the work I did last fall and spring to clean. Except for the kitchen, the house was cleaner than it had been since before the car accident. All summer I have tried to summon the gumption to tackle the kitchen. It’s just been too hot to attack cupboards, walls, and appliances with bleach and caustic substances. Hell, it’s been too hot to do damn near anything.

Besides the filth, there was the invasion of the spiders. An arachnophobe would need a straitjacket should he or she wander into my home. While all the varieties common to this area are represented, Daddy Longlegs have had a population explosion.

I have giant Daddy Longlegs and baby Daddy Longlegs and teenagers, old folks and middle-agers. It’s the cat’s opinion that they were imported for her amusement.

Periodically, I suck some of them into the vacuum cleaner, but my ethnic cleansing did little to stem the tide of uninvited immigration. Since they don’t bother me and they do keep the other insect population down, I adopted a principle of peaceful coexistence provided webs weren’t built in doorways. (Nobody likes a face full of spider web.)

Today would have been a good day for fall cleaning other than the fact it was a perfect day to snuggle in blankets and read a trashy novel. The day was cool and rainy; and Babette was cuddly. I should have slung bleach around, vacuumed spiders, put the summer clothes away, and so on and so forth ad nauseam infinitus. But I didn’t. And I’m not sorry.

I’ve got on socks and a sweatshirt. It’s chill in this house and I’m fixin’ to make hot chocolate. Viva la Fall.